


Watcher, Resurrected (The Ascending Tartarus Remix)

by tielan



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 03:15:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7558006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot can happen between death and re-life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watcher, Resurrected (The Ascending Tartarus Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Ascending Tartarus](https://archiveofourown.org/works/845029) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account). 



 It takes Faith a moment to recognise him: it’s been a few years – more than a few, really – and he’s not exactly someone she expects to see.

She’s finishing off the last of a half-dozen vampires in the backstreets of downtown LA when she becomes aware that a new player has entered the field. She nearly stakes him for one more vampire – then pulls back at the last moment, horrified echoes of Allan Finch’s death.

Her eye skims the dirty clothing, the overgrown beard, the skinned knuckles, and the gaunt length, and rests on the long-bladed knife he’s hlding. It takes her a moment but when he looks her in the eye with dilated pupils as she just about kills him, she recognises the expression on his face. After all, she’s come close to killing him several times before.

She steps back but doesn’t put down the stake. There’s no sense of vampire about him, but she’s all spun astray by the sight of him. “Wes?”

“Faith.” Every time she meets him, his voice seems to get rougher. “Still fighting the good fight?”

She quips because that’s easy – easier than processing what it means to see him again so many years later. “Never got out. Unlike you.”

He frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re playing it pretty normal, Wes – if a little scruffy – for a guy who was last known dead.”

“As a matter of fact, Faith,” he says in that dry-as-dust Watcher tone that she used to hate so much, “I’m fairly sure I _was_ dead.”

* * *

A decade of death is not conducive to trust; Faith disarms Wes and he allows himself to be disarmed, willingly. It includes a pat-down that they’re both brisk about, although Faith notes that in spite of the thinness, he’s managed to retain some muscle.

_Retain? He’s a dead man – or should be._

The ‘should be dead’ factor makes her cautious; while her Slayer senses have honed and expanded over the years, there are still limitations.

She restrains him with a discarded iPhone charger cord, and he holds his hands out willingly – until she starts whipping the cord around his wrists.

“What’s this?”

Faith glances up, frowning. “I don’t know what you are – I don’t know if I can trust you.”

“I understand that,” he says, dry as dust. “But what are you tying my hands with? Some power cord?”

There’s a moment when Faith doesn’t understand what he’s asking. Then it hits her. “What year do you think it is?”

“Considering you’re asking the question, I’d say it’s later than I initially imagine. 2007, perhaps?” His eyes narrow. “Or much later.”

Her smile is thin. “Much later.”

* * *

Helena’s in the office, watching the feeds, the tip of her tail waving lazy eights in the air. “Your taste in men hasn’t improved, Faith.”

“I wouldn’t want to taste him right now.” As Helena quirks an eyebrow, she adds, “He’s an old friend.”

“Friend or frenemy?” The pupils that fix on Faith are huge, with only a thin rim of iris around them. In bright sunlight they slit like a cat’s. “What do you want?”

“One of your guys and a shower. Not like that, gutter-brain,” she says as the tail pauses, then flicks in a little uptick of amusement. ““He needs a wash and a change of clothing that doesn’t require burning.”

“Abstinence isn’t healthy for your kind, Faith.”

“Certain US conservatives would disagree.”

Helena manages to give the impression of rolling her eyes, even though her eyeballs are not biologically suited to the gesture. “I mean  _ slayers _ , you terrible child.”

“Back to the point,” Faith says before Helena can give her book, chapter, and verse. “I need to make a couple of calls, and I think it’s best if he’s watched by one of your guys – is Rico in tonight?”

“Rico is in and your man can have him,” says Helena with a smirk, before it drops and her eyes sharpen. “Who’re you calling?”

Faith smiles back, her most pleasantly obtuse smile. She’s learned a few things in the years since she first became Slayer, became a criminal, became an adult. “A few old friends.”

* * *

By the time Faith has finished the calls, Wes has showered and shaved and found enough clothing to make him decent.

If, by ‘decent’, one means the basics are covered.

The waist of the sweatpants skim his hipbones, and the singlet top shows off a body just as muscled and lean as it was all those years ago. But it’s the face that Faith finds most surprising – although she shouldn’t, all things considered.

“Did I miss a spot?”

They’d be around the same age, now, she thinks – the same number of years of experience. It surprises her enough that she speaks without her usual guardedness.

“You’re younger than I remembered.”

“Since it’s impolite to rejoin with the opposite observation, I’ll simply say that it’s been twelve years – so Rico informs me.” His gaze slips over to the brawler of a guy sprawled in the chair by the door. “He’s been fairly helpful in giving me a brief history of the world.”

She nods her thanks at Rico, who growls, “You owe me dinner, Faith.”

“You really want your heart served on a platter?”

He grins. “Man’s gotta take his chances.”

Faith gives him a look and turns back to Wes who’s watching her with the gaze she always thought was judging her, back before she went into prison. Now, with a decade and more of experience under her belt, she realises that it was nothing so personal – an assessment of the situation, a consideration of the issues. Didn’t she do the same in that vamp-dusted alleyway?

“So,” he says, lightly. “What’s next?”

“We take a visitor who confirms you are who you say you are, and then...” Faith shrugs. “It’ll depend on his answers. In the meantime, I’ve asked Helena to get someone to bring us something to eat. You look like you haven’t had a decent meal in months.”

His expression is thin and sardonic. “Homeless is harder than it looks.”

* * *

To Faith’s surprise, the meal is brought to them by Helena some ten minutes later. In that time, Faith has answered Wes’ questions about the people they once knew. In many cases, she does so with a little mendaciousness – largely because she still doesn’t know if she can trust him – or whatever it is that’s wearing his face.

Helena stalks in, her nose twitching delicately as she sniffs at the undercurrents of the room. “Faith, one of your friends has arrived and is on his way down by way of backstage. Apparently he’s familiar with all my girls and they’re doing ‘catchup’ after closing hour. Are there any others I can expect?”

“Just him. I got the answers I wanted over the phone.”

The mistress of the establishment fixes her with an unblinking gaze, which Faith steadfastly ignores in favour of taking the meal Helena is offering her – a basic meal of soup and sandwiches. It’s nothing fancy, but she doesn’t expect or want fancy – just filling. She helps herself to the plate with the bowl of soup sitting on it, the sandwiches tucked underneath, then watches as Helena offers the tray – and her attention – to Wes.

Most men get distracted by the cut of Helena’s top – even a little. And Wes’ eyes flick from the tray to her breasts, and back to the tray again. Certainly, he’s not dead in  _ that _ sense. But he takes the offered food, if not the offered invitation.

“You’d be the former Watcher, then.”

“Correct.”

“You don’t smell dead.”

“Presumably because I’m not,” Wes’ smile is thin and edged as he sets the plate with soup and sandwiches on the table opposite Faith and sits to begin eating. “Although I hardly expect you to take my word for it.”

“No, my darling and dead sweetcakes, that would be me taking your word for it.” Of course Lorne poses in the doorway, because that’s the kind of thing that he does, smiling. “Or, at least, your song.”

* * *

Wes’ singing proves to Lorne that he’s Wes – at least, the Wes that they knew all those years ago. Which leaves, to Faith’s mind, the question of  _ why _ .

Rico has gone back to his duties, and Helena has stepped out to deal with issues in the club, which leaves Lorne and Wes chatting about old times, with a few awkward pauses.

“I walked away from Angel after we started the fight with the Senior Partners.” Lorne is frank about his involvement in what went down in LA in those few days. “I never managed to work out what happened after that – it was mostly the Slayers who sorted out the mess.”

“We got them confined again,” Faith says when Wes looks to her for clarification. “Long story short.”

“I notice there are a few of those.” His eyes are steady on hers, but Faith doesn’t look away.

“There isn’t time for the long version right now, Wes. The question is chiefly why someone went to the trouble of bringing you back and what they intend for you now.”

His expression is unsettling. “The spell of resurrection requires death by magical forces. I was knifed and bled out.”

“Most invocations require death by magical forces,” Faith said. “But I made a call, checked a few things. It can be done – but it costs a lot in terms of magical energies and intent.”

Lorne snorts. “No calling someone back because you love them, there has to be a reason? I tell you, the Powers That Be just don’t appreciate the big L – and I’m not talking about me.”

The dramatic delivery – so Lorne – makes Faith grin in spite of the seriousness of the moment. She needs to make more time to see him – sometimes she really needs a laugh. But things have been busy lately, and while Lorne is good company, seeing him is not always entirely comfortable.

“So the reason has to be pretty big.” Wes’ gaze turns inwards. It’s a new angle to him – at least to Faith. “Why me, then?”

“And that would be the million dollar question.” Lorne shrugs. “Not my thing to answer – that’ll be Faith’s job, I imagine.”

Which is the part that has Faith concerned.

* * *

“Well,” says Wes as they drive along the front porch of the Hyperion Hotel. “This seems familiar.”

“It won’t be inside,” Faith tells him as she swipes them into the parking garage beneath the hotel. “Back in the late 00s, it got gentrified and redone; it’s mostly luxury apartments now.” Which was something new for her at first; and perhaps a little complicated.

Wes cottons onto this immediately. “An interesting choice of location for a Slayer to work from?”

“And you don’t know the half of it.”

They climb off the bike in the parking garage, and she swipes a spellcard from the pile on the cement block between two pylons. When she turns, Wes’ brows are raised. “So I see,” he says.

“The kind of people who live in these kinds of places don’t want to see bloodstained and bruised Slayers walking in their doors. So we have contingencies.” She holds out her hand. “You have to be touching me for it to work on you, too.”

Wes takes her hand, easily, his fingers large and warm, and Faith doesn’t shiver, although she feels the touch all the way down her spine. Yes, it’s been a while – thanks, Helena, for bringing that up – but it’s not an urgent push anymore. She’s not the girl who needed to feel life, to live it before it slipped through her hands. She’s lived, she’s fought, she’s survived. It’s more than she ever thought she’d manage half her lifetime ago.

When he reaches out one hand for it, she waits until they’re in the elevator, subtly renovated, heading up through the floors, and hands him the card watching him turns it over in his hand. “It makes us look...normal, even to technology.” She gestures at the cameras. “No blood, no bruises – just a couple coming home.”

“And if someone touches, say, your bloody clothing?”

“At the hours I come in, there isn’t usually anyone around.” Faith shrugs as the elevator lifts through the levels of the building. “I’d work something out if I had to. I haven’t yet.”

They reach their floor and step out onto lightly-worn carpet. Faith keeps hold of his hand even as she walks to the door at the end of the corridor and pulls out her key to unlock the door.

It opens just as they reach the door.

“You took long enough,” Dawn says, holding the door open, a faint twist to her mouth as Faith walks in. “I was about to start casting a search-spell.”

Her eyes slip to rest on Wes’ face. “Mr. Wyndam-Pryce.”

“Miss Summers.”

* * *

The protective spells don’t peep at his entry, and the Show & Tell Mirror doesn’t show anything but him as he walks by. Faith supposes that’s as much confirmation as they’re going to get that Wes is who he used to be – before he died.

“I take it this is a working partnership of long standing,” Wes observes as they sit him down in the lounge. “And with some funding behind it.”

“We managed to acquire the financial interests of the old Watcher’s Council nearly ten years ago,” Dawn explains, moving some of her older tomes from the coffee table back to the bookshelves. “It gave us a bit more leeway for operations through the world. A lot has been happening while you were dead.”

“Just one more new phrase for my lexicon.”

Faith stretched out in her armchair, and stuck her feet on the coffee table, unscrewing the lid of her drink bottle. “Did Willow call you?”

“She’ll put out contacts and let us know about any recent power surges that might have contributed to his resurrection, but she can’t help you on intent. The signs have all been pretty stable so far as anyone can tell. We had a wild swing back during the election a few years back,” Dawn’s mouth quirks wryly at Wes. “The Mayans had an inkling or two, but in the end they got it wrong.”

“Or perhaps are just out by a few years?” Wes suggests. “An apocalypse takes some time to build up. Although I’m not entirely sure why someone felt I might be needful. My abilities are useful, yes, but hardly necessary.”

“I guess that’s why you brought him here?”

Faith shrugs. “It was that or leave him at Helena’s.”

“He might have liked that. It’s been twelve years.” Dawn leans back against the desk and studies Wes. It’s not wholly a Watcher’s estimation, there’s a little bit of woman in there, too. Faith bites back a grin as Wes shifts, discomforted by the overt inspection.

A _lot_ of things have changed in twelve years.

Faith has mercy on him. “You’re in the spare room. Dawn, do we have a spare toiletries pack?”

“Bathroom cabinet, bottom drawer.” Dawn bares her teeth. “Spoilsport.”

As she shows Wes to his room, pointing out the protection and reinforcement spells – both inwards-facing and outwards-facing – Faith thinks she needs to have a talk with Buffy at some point. Dawn’s been a little antsy lately, and although everything they’ve found suggests the power of The Key is no longer active in Dawn’s blood, her friends and family Watch over her as much as Dawn Watches over them.

She hands Wes blankets and sheets, wonders if there’s any guys’ clothing in the house that might fit him, and then figures she doesn’t care if he sleeps naked or not – it’s not as though she’s going to get to see it. “Bathroom’s down the hall, there’s a nightlight in the corridor. We’re not usually up before nine, but if you’re going through the apartment, be wary – there are all kinds of spells up.”

Through all this, Wes is quiet, his gaze flicking from the room to her. It’s not until she turns to leave that he says, simply, “Faith.”

She turns at the door. “Wes?”

There’s a moment where it looks like Wes is rethinking what he was going to say. Then he smiles, a little grimly, more at himself than at her, and says, “I don’t know why I was brought back. But I will do everything in my power to help you stop whatever is coming. If you had any doubts.”

“I didn’t,” Faith tells him, after a moment. “But it’s nice to know all the same.”

 


End file.
